Happy Thoughts
by wirewrappedlily
Summary: As it turns out, a sourwolf once was a sourcub. A seven-year-old Derek Hale scowled over the diner table at Stiles with a heat that could melt vibranium, and Stiles has to wonder if maybe his mom was right about the wind shifting and faces getting stuck like that. Sterek: kid!Derek fluff.


Derek Hale pre-Hale-fire was happy, as far as Stiles could tell. He had his family, his life, his heart still intact.

As it turns out, a sourwolf once was a sourcub.

A seven-year-old Derek Hale scowled over the diner table at Stiles with a heat that could melt vibranium, and Stiles has to wonder if maybe his mom was right about the wind shifting and faces getting stuck like that. "I know you're not a wolf, but you smell enough like one-"

"Uh, excuse me, I smell like _you_, kidlet. That Alpha stink is all down to you."

Derek looks very, very confused and kind of enraged by turns-mostly because he can't remember a damn thing-until Stiles pulls out his phone. Then he gets twitchy. "What...what year...did you say this was?"

"2013."

"Wh-Where are my parents?"

Stiles felt that like a kick through the chest. Yes, _through_. "Derek…" Stiles can't lie to him. He wants to so badly it feels like he's being shredded apart, but he can't, because Derek needs to know, "your family...was k-killed."

Stiles is across the table, into the other booth, before he knows what he's doing, pulling Derek into a hug. At seven, Derek's no more interested in hugging than he is at twenty-two, but Stiles does it anyway, maybe even a little taking advantage of the fact that Derek's not killing him for it in his seven-year-old state, because he's been aching to hug the living daylights out of the poor, broody bastard since he knew what was going on with the sourwolf. "How?" Derek asks into his shirt quietly, and Stiles wonders if maybe he's not getting killed because Derek needs the hug.

"Hunters." Stiles whispers roughly, "They were innocent, but the hunters...they came after them anyway…" Derek flinches slightly in his arms, drawing away, but Stiles doesn't let him go, refuses to even if Derek started growling at him, because it was bad enough to lose his mother, he doesn't want to leave Derek alone with the thought of his dead family for even a moment.

Derek's finger wrap around his arm suddenly, his head moving and looking up. The gold of Beta eyes looks up at him; Derek's not meant to be an Alpha yet, Laura's eyes would've been the blue ones. "Why...It's easier now…"

"Hm? You mean...control? I've never seen you lose control, though, so maybe you still have a little of your older self in you?" Stiles offers, but Derek shakes his head, his brow furrowing just like his bigger self's would've, and he looks up at Stiles with a weird kind of glare that's specifically a Derek-Hale expression. Seriously, he's gotta have it trademarked.

Derek actually pulls Stiles back into hugging him properly, ducking his head against Stiles's chest quietly and putting his arms around Stiles's waist. "Are you like my dad? A human with the pack?"

"Yeah, yeah, I am." Stiles's thumb starts rubbing circles onto the fragile bone of Derek's shoulder, glancing up sadly at the waitress as she brings them all the junk food that Stiles could order. She shoots a sad look at him, frowning, and he shakes his head that, no, they don't need anything else. "Hey, food's here." He murmurs, rubbing Derek's oddly wavy black hair, and bracing for a growl from it, or some threat. What he gets is some kind of pleased hum, and Derek's arms tightening slightly before letting him go. Stiles feels like he may just go into shock, but he doesn't. Instead he keeps an arm around Derek's shoulders, eating mostly one-handed and smiling tentatively when Derek looks up at him. "So, I'd ask you to come live with me and my dad, but I think it'd be better if we went to-no, never mind. My house. My house is safer." Stiles kicks himself mentally. Derek really doesn't need to see his old house, and they aren't going anywhere else. Scott can't know, and Derek's pack...no, Stiles doesn't feel like even looking at them right now would be the way to go. He does wonder if Jackson's Alpha now, though. That could be very, very bad…

Derek drinks all of his vanilla milkshake, and Stiles grins at him around the straw of his chocolate-mint, watching as Derek handles a burger that's bigger than his hand. He even steals (and Stiles lets him) some of Stiles's curly fries. The waitress brings them a whole basket more when they demolish the food, and she doesn't charge them for it.

"You wanna watch movies?" Stiles asks when they're getting ready to leave the diner, Derek looking somewhere between the glow of a good meal and junk food-induced nausea.

Derek bites his lip a little, "Um...I don't know any movies…"

Stiles shakes his head, "That's okay, we'll only watch the good ones. C'mon," Derek's hand slips into his as they go across the parking lot, his eyes always travelling, and Stiles realizes about halfway to the Jeep that it isn't that Derek's nervous for him; it's that he's nervous for Stiles. Stiles gets him in the Jeep and he stops off for the essentials-popcorn, chips, candy-right, he needs movies, too-and Derek barely pays attention to any of this process, constantly checking around them, scanning everything. Stiles puts his hand on Derek's head to get his attention first, then drops his hand for Derek to hold onto, "Stop it and relax, sourcub. I know you're nervous right now, but, just for tonight, you are not Derek Hale: Boy With World On His Shoulders. Tonight, you are Derek Hale: Boy With Liquorice Stuck On His Teeth. You are going to have a good night if it's the last thing I do, so help me, Derek."

Derek looks blankly through Stiles for a moment, before his eyes focus, and he looks down at their bounty, "Peanut butter and honey sandwiches…"

"Awesome, I can do that, too." Stiles grins, and Derek smiles back a little, like he's cured...something less drastic than cancer. Derek takes about half of what Stiles is carrying and carries it for him, and Stiles only realizes at the counter that Derek's kind of a short kid, and he has crazy eyebrows and cute cheeks...Stiles really needs to not give in to the urge to pinch Derek's cheeks, because then he _knows_ he will be slaughtered without a second thought or a hint of mercy. Just on principle, Derek would kill him.

"Wait…" Derek grabs his wrist as he goes to pay, and Derek reaches into his pocket and pulls out big-Derek's wallet, pulling out money for their endeavour, handing it over solemnly without a flicker of that even being a lot of money for a seven-year-old to have. Stiles would've freaked out if he'd had that much money on him, let alone what else was in that wallet. The clerk very nearly coos at him before plucking up a chocolate bar and not charging them for it. Derek nearly stutters, disbelieving, and Stiles is right there with him: this girl is the rental Nazi-but he puts a hand gently on Derek's shoulder and jerks his head, summoning him along before either of them break the magic spell that is little Derek Hale charming the pants off of every woman they come across simply by being little and...okay, yeah, Stiles will admit, Derek's kind of adorable.

Stiles analyzes the situation on the drive home, and, yep, those are the clothes big-Derek had been wearing, miniaturized. And Derek won't have pajamas…Stiles heaves a sigh, narrowing his eyes into the night, "I'll have to lend you something to sleep in."

Derek looks up at him, his mouth twisting, "Sorry."

"Hey, no: rule is no apologizing for magical shit of which you are a victim." Stiles winced at the swear as it came out of his mouth, but Derek bit back a smile, "What?"

"My mom...she swears, too. My dad hates it, but she says sometimes it helps."

"Well, I don't think she meant like that...I'm sorry." Derek shrugs, smiling a little.

"It's okay."

Stiles smiles and forces Derek to let him carry the bags inside, very, very happy that his dad is working a double. Stiles sets up the movies, grabbing a comforter and pillows, setting the couch up for maximum comfort and minimum hassle with their snacks. Stiles makes peanut butter and honey sandwiches, popcorn, and pours out the chips, grinning as Derek beams at him. "That is a good look for you, sourcub." Derek makes a face at him, but smiles nonetheless.

They plug in _A Knight's Tale_ and Derek makes a face at Chaucer's first appearance, "He has no bum!" Stiles looks wonderfully shocked, and then they're both laughing hysterically, Stiles sliding down on the couch, pinching the bridge of his nose as he laughs helplessly.

"You are right with that one." Stiles quips, snorting with laughter, tilting his head slightly.

Derek's bony little shoulder presses into his arm until Stiles has to shift, laying his arm over the back of the couch, Derek shifting into him, "I like this movie…"

Stiles grins through most of it, laughing as Derek reacts to characters, "I like the armourer way more than I like Jocelyn." Stiles whispers as if it's a secret. Derek beams at him again.

"I like her, too. She's better, and prettier, I don't like Jocelyn." Stiles laughed gently, letting Derek settle into his side. "Even her maid-thingy is prettier than she is."

Stiles nods in agreement, and they laugh at the Black Prince Edward, Stiles kind of quietly shining with pride as William's father raises his face to the heavens in pride. Derek groans "ew" as William and Jocelyn kiss. "Chaucer is my favourite, though."

"I like Wat."

"Yours can't articulate even to give a threat, and mine talks for a living." Stiles shoots him a devilish grin, and Derek snorts.

"I don't like talking."

"Why not?"

Derek ducks his head, looking down at his hands, and that was the wrong thing to ask, "I...stutter, sometimes...when I'm nervous." Red rises in Derek Hale's cheeks. Stiles feels like calling the presses.

But he also kind of hates the mental image of little Derek Hale getting teased over a stutter. It makes him very, very angry, actually, and really overprotective. He'd growl if it wouldn't sound human and very lame, "You know, you're really brave. Even now. Being here...I'd be terrified if I were you. I am a little terrified for you. I don't want you to get hurt." Derek looks up at him with eyes that he can't even begin to figure out the colour of, and he nods slowly, "I wish there wasn't any danger so I could...do things with you. What do you like to do?"

Derek smiles a little, looking down shyly again, "Play baseball, but I'm no good."

Stiles snorted, "The thought of big-you with a bat in his hand honestly terrifies me, and I cannot see you actually failing at anything. Tomorrow, we'll see about playing some baseball, I'll get Scott to give me the bat they use on possible-murderers."

"Possible-murderers?"

"So far, they've only used it on me." Stiles tells him with a grin, but Derek scowls, "Not-They haven't hit me. Just scared the living daylights out of me." Derek shifts slightly closer on the couch, his scowl toning down in heat only marginally.

"I don't want us to go out tomorrow. If it's dangerous, I can't protect you."

"Dude, I am the one meant to be worried about protecting you. Stop it. And we won't go out in the sense of going out; just the backyard for you, I'll get Scott to give me his bat before he goes to work."

Derek still frowns, though. "If I'm Alpha-"

"You're not Alpha right now, sourcub, and I am giving you a good day tomorrow, whether you like it or not. And when we don't die, and you get back to being all big and muscly and manly, I want you to remember this good day and I want you to know that you can have many more: as many as you want, you just have to let it happen from time to time. Deal?"

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

Stiles flashes a small, evil little smile, but he reels it in, "Do you want me to stop?" He will stop-at least until Derek's big again, but still.

Derek's eyes are shrewd, appraising, considering. Stiles feels like he's being weighed and measured. "No." He's not found wanting, "I've...I've never had a nickname before." Stiles wants to hug him all over again.

They watch another movie, this one _Lilo and Stitch_. Stiles hugs Derek again when Stitch finds his family, and Derek stays where he is, tucked up beside him. Stiles can't imagine what it's like to find out you've lost everyone you love. He can't help but hope that Peter is in a cave somewhere on the other side of the ocean, because he won't be able to take it if Peter shows up with Derek like this. He'll kill him himself if he has to, just no. Derek really...he deserves better than this. Better than what Stiles and Scott and Erica and Boyd and Jackson and Isaac can offer him. Stiles never let it coalesce in his mind before, never acknowledged it even a little, but Derek needs way more than he's getting from any of them, and Stiles absolutely will not let that stand anymore.

Derek and he get ready, Stiles grabbing an extra toothbrush for him and changing while Derek's out of the room, setting out a shirt that's almost too small on Stiles and a pair of boxers holding up about the same, with a drawstring waist. They both swallow Derek whole, but Stiles smiles as he comes back in. He's made a bed on the floor that Derek's climbing into, but Stiles stops him with an "ah-ah-ah" noise and a look. "But it's your bed."

"Meaning what? It's too full of me-stink for your nose? You sleep in my bed sometimes, when you need to." Derek hesitates in moving, cocking his head slightly as if he's confused and blinking slowly at him, "Not with me in it, you usually sneak in here or come bursting in with something for me to research-" Stiles has been remiss: Stiles needs to research. Stupid, stupid Stiles.

Derek looks almost disappointed, looking down at the makeshift bed; two comforters, one for a mattress and one for a blanket, and a pillow. "But you'll be more comforta-"

"No. You. Bed. Now." Stiles points, putting on his best boss-face. Derek huffs, rolling his eyes, but he goes, sliding down under the covers. Stiles tucks him in before he can stop himself, and looks at the computer anxiously, as if he's managed to split himself in half and do the work while he can get some sleep. Derek cuts that off, though. He cuts right through it, with something completely involuntary that manages to melt Stiles in his chest in kind of a painful way.

Derek yawns. "Sweet dreams, Stiles." He murmurs, his eyes already drooping closed. He's so soft and so young; how the hell could anyone do what's been done to Derek when he was once this child?

"You, too, sourcub. The best of dreams for you." He makes a completely involuntary move then; he kisses Derek on the forehead. Derek smiles, half-asleep already, and rolls over towards him, curled up and snug.

Stiles can't stand, can't move, can't breathe. If he never gets the chance to again, he will bring some kind of light to Derek's life now. He'll see Derek happy, it doesn't matter to him if he'll have to give it up eventually.

Stiles slides down into the makeshift bed. He wakes up once in the night, Derek making a soft whining sound that's completely human, and young, and scared. Stiles scoops him down beside him and hugs him instinctively, hushing him and brushing through his hair as Derek clings on, his heart going so hard it feels like a hummingbird's wing, and Stiles has never wanted to use that cliché, ever, so to have forced it out of him means it's really not a good rhythm. Stiles presses his palm to Derek's thin chest, breathing even and deep, forcing Derek to match him by sheer will. He takes a deep breath, and disregarding the facts that he can't sing, barely remembers the words, and should probably not even think of trying this, Stiles starts to sing. It's an old, sad lullaby; something his mom used to sing to him when it was raining. Derek goes slack in his arms by stages, and Stiles puts it down to the fact that there is nothing truly like being sung a lullaby; it's the most calming, settling thing in the world. Derek's asleep against him, and Stiles sings until he's asleep, too. When Stiles wakes up with Derek still cuddling him, Stiles smiles to himself; Derek Hale is a closet-cuddler, Stiles is so claiming time on his bed back...if he can manage to do that without being slaughtered. That would be bad.

Derek wakes up, and Stiles tells him he was having a nightmare; Sitles'd needed a cuddle, too. Derek still looks a little embarrassed, but he stops trying to smother himself with Stiles's pillow, which is a big improvement. "Not a good day so far…" Derek groans, sounding more like his older self than he has yet.

Stiles laughs, "I am a joy to sleep with-"

"You drool."

"Shut up, sourcub, don't insult the pancake-maker." Derek perks at the sound of "pancakes", Stiles feels secretly proud. "C'mon." They go down in their sleepwear, and Stiles glances perfunctorily at the note his dad has left him about working early for a case. Stiles thinks it's more like his dad has finally found himself a girlfriend. It doesn't matter: he'll know for sure eventually, and his dad was good enough to let him have his secrets, he can stay mostly away from niggling into his dad's.

"Where's your family?" Derek asks quietly, and Stiles pauses, but then smiles a little.

"Well, my dad's gone to work...my mom died a few years ago…" Derek looks at him hard and angry, and he reaches out and hugs Stiles. He actually initiates a hug, completely on his own. Of course, he's short, so it's with Stiles's thighs, but still. Stiles's hand settles on Derek's head, massaging softly, before Derek finally pulls away. Stiles drops to one knee, and pulls Derek in for a real hug, tilting Derek's face into his neck easily, the better to let the boy cry; because Stiles can tell that it's finally coming. "I know. It's okay, I know." He's scared. He's alone. All he has going for him is this strange human, and Derek just _needs_. Stiles wishes he could find the person that told Derek not to cry; to hold it all in. He wishes he could tear them to shreds, prove them wrong to Derek, because Derek holds this in; Stiles knows he does. Stiles is intimately familiar with the sheer rage that comes from losing your parent too soon: He knows what grief looks like when you convince yourself that letting it out means falling completely and helplessly apart. He does know.

By the time Derek's done, Stiles has him basically sitting on his lap, his head still tucked up under Stiles's chin, and Derek is shaking like he's cold. "Wh-When do-When did they die?"

"You were sixteen." Stiles murmurs softly.

"What-What about your mom? How old were you?"

"I was nine…" Derek's body tenses like he's been hit, and Stiles hushes him gently, running his fingers through Derek's hair again, "It's okay, Derek. I'm...I'm okay now." Stiles takes a breath, then he presses on, because Derek has to hear this, and he has to be the one to say it, "I'll never be the same, no one who's lost someone that close to them is ever exactly the same...but we learn to cope. The pain doesn't have to swallow you up, Derek. You're better than that: You're the big bad Alpha." Stiles teased gently, and Derek hugged him a little tighter, shaking his head.

"Not right now I'm not." Derek mutters, sighing quietly.

Stiles shrugs, "You have some time not to be Alpha now, you're right. But I don't want to see you use your responsibility-free freedom to wallow in grief. Now, I'm making us pancakes and bacon and sausage. I may even put chocolate chips in the pancakes if you're-" Derek shakes his head, a look Stiles couldn't place slipping over his features.

"I'll show you how to make special pancakes." Derek tells him, offering a watered-down version of a smile, "Lemon and powdered sugar, or cinnamon and chocolate?"

Stiles "helps" as much as Derek will allow him to-and then forces him to let Stiles man the sizzling bacon, because Stiles will cry harder than Derek will if he's gone through so much turmoil of the emotional variety only to get Derek splattered in scalding bacon grease. The smells from those pancakes are orgasmic in the way food only gets to the sufficiently starved and gourmet-deprived when presented with a banquet. Stiles is gourmet-deprived, but he's not starving, so he's very, very impressed that Derek has this magic power over his stove-top, coaxing the pancakes-thinner, Stiles realizes...there's a special word for those. Crepes?-to a perfect golden-brown, shrugging and talking easily about how Stiles's mother's old way of frying the pancakes in the bacon fat (a heartattack, but so worth it, though Stiles will die before admitting as much to his dad) has him thickening the cakes a little more from what he would've done. He talks about how his mom used to tell them stories about the Irish myths, and the Hale clan's ancestry there; the reason why Derek can make lemon pancakes and sufficiently drizzle powdered sugar over the golden perfection, though making the lemon into the pancake, he informs Stiles, is cheating a little bit from the way the Irish do it.

Stiles is smacked with the taste of his own batch, and he coaxes Derek to exchange some of Stiles's pancakes for a smaller piece of his. The lemon and sugar are just as good as the cinnamon and chocolate, tangy and sweet where the cinnamon is spicy and the chocolate rich. Stiles is honestly really impressed, and he says as much. "My mom said cooking is the best kind of magic because anyone can do it, even if some are better at it than others."

"You are so much better at it than me I would pay you to cook for me always." Stiles tells him, happily full and stupid-sleepy that comes with a good, lazy morning. He smiles at Derek, and Derek smiles back, and Stiles looks outside, the sun shining and rain clouds inching slowly in; perfect recipe for a lazy day.

"I'd cook for you...well, I-"

Stiles smiles, "It's alright. Big-you doesn't like me much most of the time. Sometimes, though, he saves my life. More often than not, I save his, too. It's a balance, of sorts."

Derek looks a little perplexed, "I don't think I'd dislike you."

"Maybe...it's more like I'm an annoyance. Sometimes you have to put up with me, but most of the time you don't care-"

"I don't-No. I...You've done so much to help me-"

"Derek, you get a call from a seven-year-old saying that he's Derek Hale and he doesn't know who you are or how to work his phone, in this town, you go and you help him." Stiles doesn't know where Derek got the idea that no one would ever help, but he kind of hates it in a way that means he's going to have a thorough talking-at with Derek, whether the idiot gets it through his thick head or not. When he's big, though. Stiles will need to make up for not being scowled at constantly. "Derek, I need to tell you this when you're big, too, but I need you to know I'd help you, any time you needed it, no price attached. You act like it's your duty to protect everyone, and you take it as currying favour when someone helps you. I'm telling you now: just ask, and I will do everything I can. I may be a weak little human, but there are times I know you need help, from where ever you can get it. You can get it here."

Stiles holds eye contact with him for a long time, until Derek nods slowly, blinking. He swallows thickly and Stiles gets the feeling what he's about to say is going to hurt, "I'm not good at...at asking for help."

Stiles nods, looking solemn, "That I know. And you're lucky, because I've cultivated a talent for knowing when people need me before they do. Lydia I'm a few hundred years early on, but I'll get there eventually…" He grins at Derek, but Derek's still frowning.

"Lydia?"

"She's this girl I used to have a crush on...She's kind of married now, to another guy."

Derek doesn't know how to feel, and it shows on his face. Stiles wonders at that. He looks angry, though why Stiles can't figure out. "Well...she's a fool for not picking you." Derek says at last, blushing, and it hits Stiles like a blow. Little Derek is cultivating a crush on him-no, that is not possible...but-just _no_.

"My thoughts exactly," Stiles shrugs, "I'll find someone right for me, though. Eventually." Something seems to relax with Derek then, and he looks up at Stiles with those impossible eyes of his, looking for the first time like a real kid.

"We should watch more movies instead of running around. I feel like I'm going to explode."

"Miss vegetables yet?"

Derek narrows his eyes, "Tell no one." Stiles laughs, miming zipping his lips. Derek smiles, hops down from the table, and gathers up the plates. Stiles is in awe: almost in shock. Derek has better table manners than Stiles usually does, and he can cook. Stiles has to pinch himself.

"You sure you're seven?"

Derek looks down, biting his lip, "Mom hates it, but we had to...grow up, I guess, to control the wolf enough."

"So, basically, you did come out fully-grown and world-weary. Welp, too bad, because I am making you be a kid today."

Derek makes a face at him, but Stiles half-bats at his head, half-ruffles his hair, and his grin gets Derek to grin, too.

Rain starts to absolutely pour down as they set up the couch again, Stiles throwing a look over his shoulder at Derek, "Good call." Derek flashes a grin at him.

"I can always tell when it's about to rain. The air smells different. Feels different, too."

"Temperature drops, air feels wetter…" Stiles nods, smiling, "sometimes I can tell, too. If I'm paying attention."

Derek cuddles into Stiles's side again, and they watch movies, arguing over the characters and their merits. Stiles makes macaroni and cheese and he brings out some carrots and celery with dip. They fall asleep: Derek first, head on Stiles's stomach, and Stiles falls asleep with the warmth of Derek's small body moulded against his.

Stiles wakes up mostly because said warmth is vibrating, the sound of his growl very, very intimidating, even from a seven-year-old throat. Scott could learn a thing or fifty. Stiles wraps his arms around Derek immediately, cradling him close, "What is it? Derek?"

"Outside. Wolves. Alphas. I think it's a whole pack of them…" Stiles's heart stops, his arms tightening around Derek, protective.

"Derek, I need you to listen to me; I need you to hide. I need you to run." Derek starts to struggle in his arms, and Stiles knows he's going to start arguing, but Stiles doesn't care. He slides off the couch, kneeling with Derek still trapped in his arms, his eyes piercing into Derek's, "No, sourcub. I will not see you get torn apart. I'll die before losing another person who'd protect me. I need you to run, Derek. Please." Stiles has both of Derek's hands, looking into his golden eyes, feeling the claws trapped between his hands, "Derek, you have to run." Derek makes a broken sound, and Stiles reels him in, holding him tight, "Everything, Derek-everything will be alright."

"Sorry, but I don't think I trust you on this one." Derek tells him, voice shaking with his hands.

Stiles cups his hands on Derek's cheeks, looking at him dead-on and unstoppably, "You're going to run for me, the moment I have their attention. Run, and don't stop until you feel like you're safe. Then you call Isaac or Scott; you tell them what's happened-fuck, you tell Scott that if he doesn't help you I will haunt his ass and he will never, ever actually be alone with Allison ever again. You tell him I will torture him from beyond until he dies if he doesn't get you through this, and you say those exact words so he knows it was me." Stiles pulls him in, one last time, desperation making everything tight and painful. "You be safe, Derek, and you remember this."

Stiles lets him go, going to the front hall closet and pulling out his lacrosse bag and wrestling it open to pull out a box of bullets and a shotgun with a base of carved white ash. Derek shadows him, looking almost like he's about to have a panic attack, or like he's about to go out there and slaughter the alphas himself.

Stiles kneels down again, "Hey, Big Bad, we always get through this. You and me. We'll get through this again."

Derek nods once, "Just...please, don't let me lose you. You're all I have left."

Stiles stops dead, "I don't have time to argue with you on that one, but I so would." He hands Derek his phone and both of their wallets, "Run, and stop looking back."

Stiles is the son of the sheriff; he knows how to shoot, and how to shoot to kill or to shoot to injure (Stiles would more like to completely maim, but he'll settle for injury). The bullets he and Deaton made specially: white ash and monkshood lacing the bullets, even more deadly than the Argents'. Stiles steps out onto his porch, cocking the shotgun in a smooth motion and taking aim at the first wolf he saw.

"_You_ are trespassing. All of you are."

The wolf growls at him, and Stiles smirks, twitching the gun to the side, where another wolf is inching its way into a pounce thinking itself unnoticed, firing easily and smoothly re-cocking the gun, turning it back to the first wolf.

"Now, if you're not going to talk, I'm going to continue to shoot. My neighbours are at work, sure, but someone's going to notice, they're going to call my father, and then you'll have more than me to worry about, now, won't you?"

The wolf shifts, and Stiles keeps his ground as she stalks towards him just slightly, swaying her hips, "You're brave for a human...give us the boy and we won't kill you."

"Get off my property, and I'll consider not shooting you all like rabid dogs. You don't get Derek." Stiles rests his finger over the trigger, steady and sure. She snarls at him, and Stiles smirks, resting the gun where he can control the kick. She shifts smoothly, as she leaps, and the other wolves are drawing in towards the showdown in the front. Stiles shoots her, too, out of the air, and she rolls across the grass with a whimper, unable to shift back. Stiles takes aim again.

Two wolves charge him at once, and Stiles shoots one, flipping the butt of the gun out, the white ash that had been carved into a stock then bathed in monkshood for the three days of the new moon. It strikes the back of the wolf's head-cutting it too close to those teeth, Stiles-and the wound hisses, reacting to the poison.

The first wolf he shot takes an opportunity while he's focussed on driving the pair back, leaping for him-and then Derek, little seven-year-old Derek, is there between them. Stiles sees it from the corner of his eye, and his whole world stops, kicking him in the chest, because he doesn't have the reaction time a werewolf does and he can't do shit about stopping the alpha's trajectory into Derek's small, very breakable body. Derek launches himself into the same trajectory, though, flies into it with all his force, and Stiles reloads and re-cocks the gun in a blink, bringing it up and firing as Derek's body fell away, limp and bleeding, hitting the wolf in the heart this time. Stiles is in motion, running for Derek's prone form on his porch, panic rising so high he feels ready to die from it, but he won't, because he needs to keep it together, to make sure Derek is okay. Derek whines as Stiles's arms go around him, pulling him up into his arms, and Stiles checks him over by touch, seeing what bones are broken and where the blood is coming from, holding his palm to the wound desperately, because the bleeding is so bad. "Your entire pack is wounded; one is dead, and I'm only a _human_ in the Hale pack. Leave, or we'll show you just how deadly we are." The woman that he'd shot out of the air looked at him balefully, "Leave now, leave for good, and never come back, and I'll give you the bullets you need to keep from dying." The one he'd smashed over the head shifted back, clutching the back of his bleeding skull.

"You're just a human of the pack-"

"He's my mate. As the alpha of the pack, my mate can negotiate this." Stiles's heart stops. He wants to be incredulous, he really does, but for once while the bad guys are there, he can keep his mouth shut.

The alpha looks at them unhappily, looking at his pack, "We will leave."

"Tonight, or I send the Argents after you, too." Stiles orders coldly, and the man nods again. He must hear Chris Argent's SUV coming already, Stiles realizes when it pulls up just a moment later. Stiles looks down at the boy in his arms, and he really doesn't want to let Chris or anyone know that Derek was vulnerable. "Mate, huh?" Derek nods slowly, looking grieved; begging for forgiveness. Stiles bends down and presses a kiss to his forehead, "We're going to have to work on getting you to trust me."

"I do...I do trust you-" And as the words come out of his mouth, Derek grows and shifts, his body lengthening and broadening until the fully-grown alpha is lying in Stiles's lap, clinging to his arms. Derek looks from Stiles down the length of his body and back up to Stiles.

"Please tell me you remember everything?" Derek simply looks completely perplexed, and Stiles sighs, "Of course you don't…" Stiles bends his head down then, angling Derek's because Stiles is high on adrenaline and Derek has no idea what the fuck is going on, and he kisses him. It's still an awkward angle, and Derek still has no idea what's going on, but, hey, Stiles isn't immediately getting killed, so that's a bonus, even if Derek's mouth is completely unresponsive.

Stiles pulls away, sits up, slides out from under Derek, and rolls his shoulder, wincing as Chris comes barrelling up the walk, "'Kay, so: they get to leave with…two of my bullets, and the promise that if they aren't gone by tonight, you're going to help me hunt them. They're willing to kill a human, so I think you'll agree to that," Chris nods begrudgingly, "and they aren't to come back because I am one measly little human, and I just killed one of them and maimed the rest: imagine what the whole pack would do. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go have a panic attack and then think up a story for my dad-"

"I'll take care of that, son." Chris assured him with something dangerously close to pride, handing him his gun back. Stiles tossed two bullets at the human-shifted of the Alpha Pack and marched himself into the house, calmly and carefully stowing away his gun and the shells, hiding it away, turning his back to the closet and sliding down the door, trying to breathe. Stiles drops his head between his knees, not because he thinks it'll work, but because he can't handle seeing the shadows moving across the porch. His front door opens and closes quietly, and a very large hand settles over the back of his neck.

"I don't want to talk about the kiss. I will tell you what happened, but I don't want to even go into that right now, I am too pissed off and I will shoot you."

Derek doesn't say anything, but he sits close enough that his thigh is pressed against Stiles's, his hand still on the back of his neck. Stiles slowly begins to breathe easier, not a full panic attack.

"Just...go and get your wallet and phone, I don't know where they are, I gave them to you and told you to run." Derek doesn't move immediately, and Stiles could hit him. "_Go_."

"Not until you tell me what happened that made you think you could take on the-"

"HEY! No! You don't get to do this, Derek. Not now. I just took on the Alphas, and I fucking won!" Stiles throws himself to his feet, anger boiling over with the shock and the panic because Derek could've told him. Derek could have told him that he was his mate; he could've let Stiles know that he had a place in the pack beyond being the pack annoyance. There was so much time he'd wasted, and Stiles doesn't want to let it go, because, yeah, he may not be perfect, and the rejection isn't a shock, but it still hurts.

Stiles wants little-Derek back. He wants to not get scowled at, he wants to get answers and to _relax_. "Stiles-" Derek grabs his arm, backing him up against the closet door and pressing into his space, holding him in place all too easily with a hand on his hip. Derek puts his face behind Stiles's ear, inhaling and nuzzling, "I'm not letting you go." Derek growls, and then Stiles's mouth, hanging open in shock or protest or something, is suddenly full of Derek and Derek's tongue.

Stiles groans, reaching up and hanging on, losing himself in the feeling of the kiss until he's lightheaded and Derek lets him breathe, "Do you have any idea what's happened in the last twenty-four hours?"

"I spent it with you. We were in the kitchen, the living room, and your bedroom. I assume from being in a pair of your boxers and one of your t-shirts, I slept here, and for some reason, you smell like I need you."

Stiles's hands are locked with Derek's, pressed back against the closet door, and Derek presses completely against him, a thigh between his legs. Stiles knows he's red; he can feel the heat burning in his cheeks and, damn his genes, in his ears. He also knows his lips are swelling and the skin around them is still prickling with the slight beard burn. Derek's pupils blow wide, and his lips twitch up on one side, a smirk that kind of makes Stiles's knees unreliable. "Wha-?"

"Your dad's here." Derek murmurs, frown folding over his face as he disappeared, and Stiles slumps down to the floor again, looking up at his dad as he bursts in, wild-eyed and worried.

"Stiles-"

"'S okay, I'm okay." Stiles half-heaves himself to his feet, his dad half-hauling him up. Stiles hugs his dad hard, the stress of his life making him feel desperate.

"Christ, Stiles, Chris said that you called him about a wolf stalking the house. I almost didn't believe it, but that was a big guy Chris was loading into the truck!"

"I don't know why he picked us or anything, but it was weird. He just wouldn't go down, Chris had to fire a bunch of times. I would've called you, but I didn't want to interrupt, you have a big case."

"Stiles, never ever think you can't call me." His dad sounds pained, but it was the right thing to say.

Eventually, Stiles gets his dad off back to work, and after the cruiser has driven away, Derek's arms are suddenly around him, making Stiles jump out of his skin. "So, I think I figured out what happened…" Derek mutters into his neck, holding up his miniaturized pants from the night before. Derek's lips are against his skin, though; his breath hot, forcing a shiver to run down Stiles's spine. "How old was I?"

"Seven." Stiles leans back against Derek as if he's not sure Derek will turn out to be a mirage or not, and Derek presses against his back solidly, supporting his weight.

"I got hit with something, I couldn't really tell what. We'll have to figure that out...later, though. Much later."

Derek's hand snakes around Stiles's body, dragging him further back and more upright, pressing him fully against Derek's chest, "You called me because you couldn't figure out how to work your phone exactly. You needed help, so I came and got you. You were freaked out, I was a stranger to you, but you came with me anyway. We went to a diner, got movies. You made us pancakes that the gods would weep over-if this works out, you are so cooking, by the way-and we decided to have a lazy day, because I wanted you to have one good day, and I was hoping you'd remember it."

"Why?"

"You deserve a good day. I probably should've killed the whole Alpha pack just for ruining that." They're creeping slowly backwards, Stiles loose and pliant and not actually moving at all; just being moved.

"What were you thinking, taking them on?"

"That I don't want to watch you get hurt, and if I can fling myself out there like scrap meat for them to go after; if I can buy you time, I will. That I kicked ass thoroughly was just as shocking to me as it was to you, I promise." Stiles grins to himself, eyes closed as Derek growls at that, but continues to drag him backwards.

The words are harsh when they come, Derek angry that Stiles would risk himself and reluctant in being proud of him despite it, "It wouldn't have been surprising to me, Stiles. You're stronger than you give yourself credit for. I wish I could have seen it."

"You are so not allowed to come after me about not running when you tell me to run anymore. I told you to run, and you put yourself between me and one of the alphas." Stiles feels a small simmer of rage, and Derek's hold on him shifts just slightly, easing it away.

"Imagine my glare in response to that." Derek's voice doesn't sound like he's glaring; it sounds like he's wrapping both arms around Stiles and lifting, picking him up and moving faster than Stiles moving with him of his own volition would've moved them.

Stiles smiles when Derek put him un-ceremonially on the bed, "You've been big for just over two hours, you are not getting laid that fast."

"Not what I was after anyway." Derek strips off the ruined shirt that had grown with him, climbing into the bed beside Stiles, curling onto his side around him, pulling him in.

"How're you healing?" Stiles mumbles, fingers tracing over hot skin towards where the wound had been.

"Alright, but it'd be better with sleep." Derek's hand covers over Stiles's eyes briefly, and he nestles down beside Stiles on the bed, "And I sleep better when you're nearby, and you need sleep, too, so hush." Stiles heaves a sigh, closing his eyes and settling in.

When Stiles wakes up again, it's to Derek's growl rumbling through him from below; his body sprawled on top of Derek's even more thoroughly than that time in the police station with the kamina. Stiles's head feels full of wool for a moment, then he remembers why he's laying on top of Derek and what happened last time he woke up to Derek growling. "Do I need my shotgun?" He mutters very, very quietly.

"No." Scott chirps at him from across the room and Stiles raises himself up finally, just enough to twist and shoot an incredulous look at Scott from over his shoulder.

"Yes." Derek answers, and Stiles kind of secretly agrees. "Scott was just telling me that he hit me with a spell he and Deaton cooked up. It's made to force me into a position of trust-"

"Okay, I'm going to stop you there, because my best friend, god love him, is a fucking _idiot_-and why the ever-loving fuck would Deaton help you?!" Stiles only doesn't launch himself out of Derek's arms because Derek's holding him still and he doesn't want to. He's pissed, though, and Derek's eyes watch him with something very...fond shining in them.

"To teach me the lesson. Spell's only broken when I accept trusting someone." Derek's voice is an level growl though there's no anger in his eyes, still trained on Stiles; the tone and inflection unchanging, Stiles drapes himself back over Derek's chest in a calculated move.

"Ew, dude-" Stiles wins all.

"Fuck you, Scotty, you have ten seconds to get out of my house before I start making out with him. One-" Derek's chest begins to rumble again, but when Stiles looks up, he's laughing quietly, his arms a little more solid in cradling around Stiles's waist. Stiles grins back, "-ten."

"No! NO! EW! Stiles, dude, I just...look, your dad's been at my house-"

Stiles squawks in laughter, Derek grinning, too, "Good for my dad!" the jubliation tones down and Stiles remembers he's pissed at Scott, so he grabs Derek's face between his hands for the second time, and kisses him. Scott's out of the desk chair in an instant, and Derek chuckles as Stiles's bedroom door slams closed. Stiles relaxes bonelessly onto Derek's chest-another calculated move-before he takes a deep breath and bites the bullet, "Why didn't you tell me?"

Derek can't leave without Stiles clinging to him or hurting him trying to get him not to, so Stiles wins again as Derek heaves a sigh, his hands settling at the bottom of Stiles's ribs, Stiles's head slipping under his chin, "You were in love with Lydia and everyone I love dies."

The way he says it, so easily and so matter-of-factly, Stiles dies inside, pressing into Derek's body with an injured sound. Derek holds him tighter, worried, and Stiles is angry and hurt and he will refuse to let go of Derek until the day he dies, because he really hates how hard it's been for Derek. "I'm not going anywhere, Hale. You are stuck with me, whether you like it or not."

Derek smiles, Stiles can hear it in his voice, "I trust you."


End file.
